Playback Speed and Gain Control

I have good and bad news. Bad news first: All uPod users who are on Android 4.0.x (ICS) will no longer be able to use playback speed control for audio episodes as uPod no longer supports 3rd party apps for playback control. The good news: All users on Android 4.1 (JellyBean) and above benefit from the new integrated playback speed control!

Yes, you no longer need to install an instable, battery sucking 3rd party app to control the playback speed of your audio podcasts. uPod has it integrated now (including instability and battery sucking). Because it’s a new feature I’ve marked it as experimental and disabled it by default. To use it you need to switch from the default “Android Player” in uPod’s playback settings to the experimental new “Sonic Player”.

As a bonus the new Sonic player brings another feature which — for me — is even more useful than speed control: Volume gain. Do you also know the situation where you try to listen to an episode with low recording levels in a noisy environment and though you’ve set the volume to the maximum the stuff isn’t loud enough? Consider this solved! The new integrated volume gain control increases the level of the audio file (the maximum amplitude) and can make playback way louder! Naturally this feature has it’s limits: If you try too high gains you will get sound artifacts. Simply try it out — it’s awesome!

The price conscious users among you might be happy to hear that both features are available in the free version!

Here is the full list of changes for uPod 4.1:

Integrated audio speed control

Integrated volume gain control

New option to automatically download “New episodes and episodes saved for later”

Episodes added automatically to the playlist can keep their “New” state﻿ now